Just Sketches

One of my best friends as a kid was a big, oversized book called The Great Book of the Animal Kingdom. It was packed with beautiful illustrations—many of which I copied obsessively.

My original copy is so thumbed and worn I’m afraid to touch it. A few years ago, my wife found me a fresh one. Same pictures, but somehow not the same feel. Still, when I pulled it off the shelf recently, I got hit with a rush of joy.

The illustrations are still stunning. And since I’ve been sharpening my cartooning skills, I tried something new: fast, rough sketches from each page. Just capturing the spirit.

This post—my 100th for Sasquatch Paw—is just those sketches. And a bit of reflection, of course..

Invertebrates

The book was published in 1980, long before woke evolutionary biologists like Steven Jay Gould pointed out that multicellular life didn't develop in an orderly directionality from spineless creatures towards complex and refined humanity. But heck–I didn't know that when I was seven!

So yeah, it starts off with bugs and worms and other weird things...

Fair point, no one's weird and everyone's weird, in their own way. But even if you have a backbone, or a large brain, it's still hard to connect emotionally with facial expressions that include compound eyes. Or body language with eight legs. Anyway, the book has only a handful of insects anyway, even though they're the most biodiverse group of animal life on the planet.

Technically, most animals are beetles, as Darwin famously quipped.

Fish + Other Stuff in Water

While we're quibbling, quibble me this: were you aware that technically, we're all fish?. And do you know what to call a fish with no eyes?

Fsh.

Herps

Then again, turtles seem to be pretty universally thought of as cute, while snakes do not. Lizards are somewhere in between, and crocodilians are strictly terrifying. Who the hell knows? I really like reptiles though, and for some non-phylogenetic reason, they're lumped in with the amphibians too.

Avian Dinosaurs

I grew up being so confused about whether or not dinosaurs were reptiles, because I don't think paleontologists had made it really clear. For sure, there were still plenty of books showing them as basically lumbering, bipedal crocodiles.

But I remember the first time I saw the scaly legs of a cockatoo at a pet store–there was no doubt in my mind that I was looking at a dinosaur, because I was!

Especially terrifying are the cassowaries.

But even though there were literally birds called "Terror birds", I gotta admit the feathers take the edge off a teeny bit. I've had so many nightmares about T. rex hunting me that it's somewhat comforting to know they probably had feathers.

Come on! Birds are goofy and we all know it!

Us! Us! Us!

Finally, we move onto the mammals–or, "ourselves" as we egomaniacally refer to... ourselves. What's the big deal with us? Why do we always get top billing? Who says that The Great Book of the Animal Kingdom has to save mammals for its star studded conclusion?!

Well... I guess we did make the book, so maybe this is just subconscious self-absorption. But when you started as monotremes–who still have a cloaca for goodness sake!–I'm not sure you really should think so highly of yourself.

Most mammals are just bats and rodents too. Now... you might like bats and rodents, but I bet you can't name all 1,500 species of bat and 2,700 species of rodent!

I bet you can't do double digits for either, in fact. Although this page'd get you pretty close.

While we're on a "lumping-the-weirdos-together" phase, we not throw in the Xenarthans, Tubulidentata and Pholidotamorpha as well?!

Phew!

Have we hit anything lovable yet?

As if the book knows it's dismissing the freaks and geeks of the animal kingdom, it finally pauses for some glamour shots when it finally gets to something photogenic– the cetaceans!

Ohh yeah, gimme some more of them ocean-dwelling placental mammals!

Wowza! I don't know, I think there is something to this self-infatuation–look at all our seductive rolls! I wonder what can match this robust beauty?!

I think it's true–mammals are really beautiful. You know what I think is the most gorgeous branch of all the mammals? The ungulates. I love ungulates!

What's an ungulate? It's a(n outdated) term for a hoofed mammal. They got long legs and charismatic trots, plus plenty of them sport big old horns or antlers! I'd love to surrounded by ungulates. It feels weird to even say this, but I might be the only person you know who has a web browser bookmarked to www.ultimateungulate.com.

As you can see, I got a bit carried away with the ungulates (or maybe the book did and it just got ingrained into me as a small child).

But of course, the primates in charge weren't going to end The Great Book of the Animal Kingdom on a rhinoceros, so I sadly needed to progress my sketching to monkeys and stuff.

We're all primates reading, writing, and drawing all this stuff anyway, so I guess I can get on board with them. Fine, give them the feature spot, although it's NOT necessarily the most important one.

They're cool, they're all right. They're great for body language and facial expressions. It's fun to envision all the extraordinary behavior you see at a gas station or a Wal-Mart having it's origins in these ancient species.

Hmmm...

Okay fine, I accept it– The Great Book of the Animal Kingdom is fine as it is. I can finally let go of my contemporary biases and admit that they were doing their best. Just because they used an outdated and ultimately prejudiced hierarchy to demonstrate Earth's animal life doesn't mean they were historical bastards! It's just an animal book!

But I am really thankful that I had this growing up, and had so much fun trying to "capture" the animals and I rediscovered an old love. And I'm thankful to you, for reading.

Thanks for listening to the ramblings of this old ape...